This is a garden trail created for school garden. Might be useful to adapt for your own garden/space.
March 19 – Readiness for Learning
Some websites and info. that might be of interest when working with our unique learners…..
Inclusive technology website
Priory Woods website
Sensory stories, Sensory recipe books
Anything related to Jo Grace (Sensory projects)
Anything related to Flo Longhorn and Les Staves.
Re Lámh, the place to look for info is https://www.lamh.org/ Online courses for families may be available.
School Self-Evualation
Each year, the school teaching staff engage in a cycle of school self-evaluation (SSE) looking at what we are doing and choosing areas for improvement.
This year, we are working on the area of teacher collaboration.
Under this umbrella, we have created cluster groups of teachers working together on the following:
- Positive behaviour support (early years)
- Digital literacy/learning (middle classes)
- JCT (L1LPs) (senior classes)
The overriding aim of this work is to make progress and to do this in a collaborative and sharing way in order to support each other to develop and evolve as educators as well as enchancing the quality of delivery of curricula to our students.
Staff have presented to our Parent’s Association on the Digital Learning Project that we have up and running. We hope to present on positive behaviour support and on the JCT for the Parents’ Association before the end of June.
General description of curricula delivered
We cater for students from age 4 – 18 years.
- From 4 – 12 years
Students follow the Primary School Curriculum, adapted to the needs of the students. - From 12 – 16 years
Students undertake the JCT following L1LPs and L2LPs across various subject areas. - From 16 – 18 years
We are guided by the Curricula above while facilitating students in following ASDAN modules and life skills oriented modules.
Looking At Our Schools (LAOS): A Quality Framework for Primary Schools
The below text aims to localise and contextualise Looking At Our Schools for the St. Gabriel’s School setting. St. Gabriel’s School pays close attention to the contents of this report as the source of guiding principles with regard to continuous self-reflection and improvement of the teaching, learning and overall experience within our school.
The publication is “designed to support the efforts of teachers and school leaders,…….., to strive for excellence in our school”.
As the report suggests, we can be “justifiably proud of our school and of the ongoing work by teachers, SNAs and visiting contributors to make learning experiences for all pupils relevant, challenging and imaginative.”
There is a commitment by the Government in this framework “to have excellent teaching and learning FOR ALL learners”. This means that our students must be supported to their full potential to access the curriculum in a meaningful way. As teachers, we must constantly strive to “maintain and improve the quality of learning in our school”. In St. Gabriel’s, we agree with the LAOS statement that “where schools reflect on the quality of their work and plan for how it can be improved, pupils learn better.” We are aiming for “good self-evaluation” in our school; it can encourage us to find new creative and effective solutions to improve the learning of our pupils”. It can also contribute to “keeping parents informed and reassured about the standards of learning in our school.”
“The idea of the quality framework is to provide standards that can help to assess how good practice is and, very importantly, to point the way towards improvement where needed. The framework is built around the areas of teaching and learning, and leadership and management.”
This guide, “published by the DES Inspectorate, is designed for teachers and for school leaders to use in implementing the most effective and engaging teaching and learning approaches and in enhancing the quality of leadership in our school. P. 6. “The quality framework seeks to assist us to embed self-evaluation , reflective practice and responsiveness to the needs of learners in their classrooms and other learning settings.”